


take a moment

by Silver_Queen_DoS



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Anderson POV, Domestic, Gen, Mass Effect 1, Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange 2020, Talking, break in the action
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:42:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22582723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver_Queen_DoS/pseuds/Silver_Queen_DoS
Summary: Shepard and Anderson take a moment to talk over dinner.[Anderson raises his glass and taps it gently against hers. "I'd rather say... here's to the first human Spectre, Commander Shepard."]
Relationships: Female Shepard & David Anderson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30
Collections: Spectre Requisitions 2020





	take a moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enisy/gifts).



> Prompt: I want Anderson POV and a domestic setting -- like, maybe they're having tea, maybe they're gardening. Quips and some angst would be nice. Can be father/daughter relationship or romantic.

“Nice digs,” Shepard says, stomping into his council-issue-apartment in a high-rise building on the Presidium itself. She’s dressed in full N7 combat armour, helmet tucked under her arm, full loadout of standard issue guns across her back. 

Or… not quite standard issue, he thinks, catching sight of the handle of a Banshee sticking over her shoulder instead of the Alliance issue Lancer. 

She should look out of place against the clean white minimalist decor of his apartment but she doesn’t. Shepard looks like she was born in combat armour. Shepard wears her dress blues like they’re combat armour — she wears _everything_ like it’s combat armour — and walks with the same stomping stride everywhere she goes. 

“It’s a step up from an officers billet,” Anderson agrees, voice as mild and steady as he can make it. “Though Ambassador Udina only lives a floor away.” 

Shepard gives the ceiling a narrow eyed look, like he’s told her it’s harbouring enemy agents, or like she’s calculating angles to shoot through it. “I’d have taken the billet,” she says. 

“So would I,” Anderson agrees with a chuckle. “How can I help you, Shepard?” 

There are dozens — hundreds — of reasons Shepard could be here. Plenty of information or advice she could be after. She’s been promoted twice — from second in command of the Normanby to it's leader, from Alliance Lieutenant Commander to Spectre — and assigned the kind of mission that has a knife edge of difference between total victory and horrific failure. 

She could be here to ask more about Saren, about his own experiences as a near-Spectre. She could be here to request classified Alliance information that he’d be obliged to give to a Council Spectre. 

Instead, she drops her eyes to study the floor. “Just a social visit,” she says. “Normandy has a day down to refuel and restock. We leave in the morning.” 

They’re not the kind of people who do social visits. The lifestyle of a soldier isn’t one that lends itself to such things. Of knowing where people will be, of having the time to find them and stop by, just to say hello. It feels almost frivolous. 

Yet it makes him smile, all the same. Shepard always manages to surprise him. 

“Make yourself at home then,” he says, reaching for his terminal. “I’ll place an order for some dinner. There’s a restaurant on the ground floor that’ll deliver right to the door.” 

“Like living in the universe’s fanciest hotel room,” Shepard says, moving past him to drop her helmet on the sofa. It’s white, plasvinyl and possibly the hardest surface known to mankind. Anderson has tried to sit on it a grand total of one time. She unhooks her guns and lays them out along the length of it — sniper rifle, assault rifle, shotgun, pistol — and rolls her shoulders back like the removal of their weight is unfamiliar to her. 

It probably is. 

“Those are the perks of rank,” Anderson says, like he wouldn’t trade all of it to get back on the Normandy, to get back in the action. 

The gaze she cuts his way — sharp and knowing — tells him that a little more of that truth slipped into his words than he wanted. 

“How are your new crew members settling in?” he asks. He _is_ genuinely curious, because taking on non-human crew is a damn bold move for a new Spectre to make. It makes a statement, that’s for sure, but he doesn’t know just yet what _kind_ of statement it’ll be. 

Udina has shared his opinion, but Anderson isn’t sure he’s ever agreed with Udina on anything and he sure as shit doesn’t agree on this one. 

“So-so,” Shepard says, making the accompanying motion with her hand. “Individually they’ve all got real skills and listen to me. Whether that’ll make a squad that works _and_ listens to me is still up in the air.” 

Anderson nods knowingly. “I know what you mean. I had a Commander like that,” he says solemnly. “Real great skills; hardly ever listened.” 

Shepard snorts. “I listen,” she objects. Then, with a glint in her eye, adds, “it’s just, you know, these comm units are so unreliable. Sometimes they just cut out. Orders don’t get through.” 

Anderson laughs. “Better watch out for that,” he says. “Lieutenant Alenko is a dab hand at electronics. Maybe he can keep an eye on your comm for you.” 

There’s a knock on the door and he goes to answer it. It’s the housekeeping staff, pushing a small trolley with the dinner he’s ordered. They wheel it into the apartment, setting his table with brisk efficiency — white cloth, dishes, glasses, utensils, flower centrepiece, candles, food kept warm under silver domes — and present the wine to him for inspection, like he’s the kind of person who cares about wine. 

“Thank you,” he says, presuming anything in this place is probably adequate and also knowing he and Shepard would drink it even if it were paint stripping moonshine. They've probably drunk exactly that on shore leave, once or twice. 

The staff pour two glasses, and then whisk their trolley back out of the room, the door shutting behind them with a soft click, like they were never there at all. 

Shepard raises an eyebrow at him, taking her glass and draining it in a single long pull like she’s on shore leave with a ticking clock. She pours herself another glass and flicks a finger against the flowers on the table. “This is overkill, don’t you think?” 

“This is a whole new world we’re in, Shepard,” Anderson says gravely, taking a sip of his own drink. He’ll probably miss out on his share if he doesn’t keep up. “Can’t have dinner without flowers and candles, apparently.” 

Shepard snorts. “I order dinner shipboard and I get a ration pack thrown at my head. _If I’m lucky_.” 

“Then let me share the bounty of my suffering,” Anderson says dryly, gesturing at the table. “I’d hate for your biotic metabolism to do you in after we’ve gone to all the effort of making you a Spectre.” 

“Hah,” Shepard says, mirthlessly. She drops into the chair and lifts the silver dome protecting the food and then stares at it for a second, obviously wondering where the hell to put it. Anderson lets her solve the issue — pulling her plate over to the right so there’s more room on her left — before he does the same. “It should have been you.” 

It’s not a non-sequitur but it still feels like one. 

“I had my chance,” he says. “Sometimes that’s all you get.” 

It’s an old wound. It still burns, sometimes — still kills him with the ache of things lost by chance — but Saren being stripped of his Spectre title has gone a long way to making him feel victorious. He’d like to think his career after that mission hasn’t been a total failure, either. 

Shepard squares her jaw, like she's ready to argue the point. Like she'd never needed anything more than his word that Saren had framed him to believe. "It wasn't fair," she says. 

"It never is," Anderson agrees. It shouldn't mean so much to hear someone else say it, but it does. The Alliance had backed him, would deny his involvement to their last breath, but that was politics. That was ass covering. Shepard meant it, in a real way. "But you've got a whole galaxy to worry about now. The Reapers…" 

Shepard furrows her brow and pokes her fork at her dinner. "Any luck convincing the Council that they're a real threat?" she asks. 

Anderson grimances. "Don't get your hopes too high," he advises. "They don't want to deal with a threat like that, so they're sticking to the party line that it's impossible." 

It _is_ far fetched, is the thing. Objectively, he can see that. And yet, he's sure down to his bones that Shepard is right. That these Reapers are coming and the entire galaxy is in big trouble. 

"But," he goes on. "I've been spreading the word. If the Captain doesn't listen, you go to the Commander. You go to the NCO's." 

"Someone, somewhere down the chain, will want to cover their ass," Shepard says, nodding. Her plate is half finished and he's not even sure he's seen her eat it — it's just been vanishing bite by bite. Neat, but hurried. A lifetime of shovelling down double the food, quadruple the food, of everyone else in the same period of time. 

"That's what I'm counting on," he says. "Even if they don't believe it, as long as they _do something_ about it… that's all we need." 

Not ideal but they'll take what victories they can get, until they have the evidence they need to convince the Council to _listen._

Shepard smiles sardonically and raises her glass. "Here's to ass-covering," she says. 

Anderson raises his glass and taps it gently against hers. "I'd rather say... here's to the first human Spectre, Commander Shepard." 


End file.
